281
AN
EXPOSITION
OF THE
TEN COMMANDMENTS:
BY THE RT. REV. EZEKIEL HOPKINS, D. D.,
SUCCESSIVELY BISHOP OF RAPHOE AND DERRY, WHO DIED IN LONDON,
A. D. 1690.
REVISED AND SLIGHTLY ABBIDGED.
Digitally prepared by: Ted Hildebrandt
Gordon College, 255 Grapevine Rd., Wenham, MA 01984
report any errors to:
June 2004
PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK.
In the present edition this work has been revised, with changes in
obsolete or defective forms of expression, and the omission of some pas-
sages having a more immediate reference to the Government or Church
of England.
NOTICE OF BISHOP HOPKINS.
Ezekiel Hopkins was born at Sanford, county of Devon,
England, about the year 1633, where his father was many years
a laborious minister. He was educated at Oxford, where he
was some time chaplain of Magdalen College. From Oxford he
went to London, where he was assistant to Dr. William Spur-
stow till the act of uniformity. After this he was preacher at
St. Edmunds, Lombard-street, and subsequently was chosen
minister of St. Mary Arches, in Exeter, where he was much ad-
mired. From Exeter he was transferred to the deanery of Ra-
phoe, Ireland, and from the deanery was promoted to the bishop-
ric, which he occupied about ten years, when he was transfer-
red to the bishopric of Derry. Here he continued about seven
years, till the papists got the sword into their hands, when he
fled for his life to England, and became minister of St. Mary,
Aldermanbury, in London, 1689, where he died, about seven
months only after his establishment there.
As a preacher, Bishop Hopkins was esteemed one of the first
of the age in which he lived, being much admired and followed
after in all the places where he preached.
As a writer, he was eminent above most authors for the com-
bination of clear statements of doctrinal and practical truth,
with an eloquent application of it to the heart and conscience.
Scarcely any other writer has, within an equal compass, so ably
discussed, and applied with such energy the whole range of
christian truth. His works are published in four volumes, edited
by the late Rev. Josiah Pratt, of London, who in his dedication
of the volumes to William Wilberforce, Esq. says, "That
4 NOTICE OF BISIIOP HOPKINS.
author is of special value whose works supply, within a mod-
rate compass, the most complete refutation of whatever can be
urged against true religion, by exhibiting her in her most beauti-
ful proportions. Such an author is Bishop Hopkins." His works,
embrace the following subjects: Vanity of the World, Exposi-
tions of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, Dis-
courses on the Law, Discourses concerning Sin, The Doctrine
of the Two Covenants, Doctrine of the Two Sacraments, The
All-Sufficiency of Christ to save Sinners, Excellency of Heaven-
ly Treasures, Practical Christianity, Assurance of Heaven and
Salvation a principal motive to serve God with fear, On Glori-
fying God in his Attributes, Almost Christian, Conscience, Great
Duty of Mortification, Death Disarmed, Miscellaneous Sermons.
As a divine, Bishop Hopkins was one of the sound theologians
to which the Reformation gave birth, and he unequivocally and
openly held and inculcated the pure doctrines of the Reformers,
opposed as they are to the pride and passions of unsanctified
men. On the difficult questions concerning the grace of God and
the obligation of man, he adopted those views which most natu-
rally reconcile with one another the declarations and exhortations
of Scripture. Few writers have entered so unequivocally into
the extent of man's responsibility, and at the same time so strong-
ly insisted on the sovereignty, and so graphically described the 1
operations of the grace of God.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Introduction ...... 7
The time of the delivery of the Ten Commandments . 9
The Reason ...... 10
The Manner ...... 11
Are they abrogated? ...... 19
General Rules for rightly understanding them . . 29
Their order...... 48
Preface to the Commandments . . . . . 50
FIRST TABLE.
The First Commandment 58
Requires the love, fear, and praise of God 61
Forbids Atheism-proofs of the being of God 68
Ignorance of the true God 92
Profaning his name, attributes, time, ordinances 101
Idolatry 120
The Second Commandment 126
The Prohibition, As to the worship of God, exter-
nal and internal 127
As to the sins here forbidden-Superstition 139
The threatening, Visiting the iniq1rities of the fa-
thers upon the children 148
The Third Commandment 165
Profaning the name of God--Oaths 166
The folly of this sin--Directions 186
The Fourth Commandment 192
Primitive Institution of the Sabbath 195
Its morality and perpetual obligation 196
Change to the first day of the week 201
The manner in which it is to be observed 204
6 CONTENTS.
SECOND TABLE
PAGE
Introduction to the Second Table 225
The Fifth Commandment 228
Duties of parents and children 233
Magistrates and those subject to them 251
Husbands and wives 261
Masters and servants 279
Ministers and their people 301
Superiors and inferiors, or those who differ in
the gifts of God's grace, or his common
bounty 316
The promise, That thy days may be long 328
The Sixth Commandment 332
The sin of murder 333
Causes and occasions leading to it 345
Rules for restraining and governing anger 352
The Seventh Commandment 359
The sin forbidden 359
Its heinousness 365
Cautions and directions 370
The Eighth Commandment 373
Of theft in general 376
Many kinds of theft 379
The duties here required 389
The Ninth Commandment 395
The value of a good name 397
The sin of lying 399
Aggravations of this sin 406
The sin of slander-rules and directions 409
The Tenth Commandment 430
The sin of concupiscence 431
The whole practically applied 437
EXPOSITION
OF
THE COMMANDMENTS.
~-~~-~~~~~
THE INTRODUCTION.
Two things in general are required to perfect a chris-
tian; the one a clear and distinct knowledge of his duty,
the other, a conscientious practice of it, correspondent to
his knowledge; and both are equally necessary. For, as we
can have no solid or well-grounded hope of eternal salva-
tion, without obedience; so we can have no sure established
rule for our obedience, without knowledge. Therefore, our
work and office is, not only to exhort, but to instruct;
not only to excite the affections, but to inform the judg-
ment: we must as well illuminate as warm.
Knowledge, indeed, may be found without practice;
and our age abounds with speculative christians, whose
religion is but like the rickets, that makes them grow
large in the head, but narrow in the breast; whose
brains are replenished with notions, but their hearts strait-
ened towards God, and their lives black arid deformed. I
confess, indeed, their knowledge may be beneficial to
others; yet, where it is thus overborne by unruly lusts,
and contradicted by a licentious conversation, to them-
selves it is most fatal: like a light shut up in a lantern,
which may serve to guide others, but only soots, and at
last burns that which contained it.
But, although knowledge may be without practice, yet
8 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
the practice of godliness cannot be without knowledge.
For, if we know not the limits of sin and duty, what is re-
quired and what is forbidden, it cannot be supposed but
that, in this corrupted state of our natures, we shall una-
voidably run into many heinous miscarriages.
Therefore, that we might be informed what we ought
to do and what to avoid, it hath pleased God, the great
Governor and righteous Judge or all, to prescribe laws
for the regulating of our actions; and, that we might not
be ignorant what they are, he hath openly promulgated
them in his word. For when. we had miserably defaced
the law of nature originally written in our hearts, so that
many of its commands were no longer legible, it seemed
good to his infinite wisdom and mercy to transcribe and
copy out that law in the sacred tables of the Scriptures;
and to superadd many positive precepts and injunctions
not before imposed. Hence the Bible is the statute-book
of God's kingdom, wherein is comprised the whole body
of the heavenly law, the perfect rules of a holy life, and
the sure promises of a glorious one.
And the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, is a
summary, or brief epitome of the law, written by the
immediate finger of God, and contracted into an abridg-
ment not only to ease our memories but to gain our
veneration; for sententious commands best befit ma-
jesty. And, indeed, if we consider the paucity of the ex-
pressions, and yet the copiousness arid variety of the mat-
ter contained in them, we must needs acknowledge not
only their authority to be divine, but likewise the skill
and art in reducing the whole duty of man to so, brief a
compendium. The words are but few, called therefore
the Words of the Covenant, or the Ten Words: Ex
THE INTRODUCTION. 9
34:28; but the sense and matter contained in them is
vast and infinite: the rest of Scripture is but a commen-
tary upon them, either exhorting us to obedience by ar-
guments, or alluring us to it by promises; warning us
against transgression by threatenings, or exciting us to the
one, and restraining us from the other, by examples re-
corded in the historical part of it.
But before I speak of the Commandments themselves,
it will be necessary to premise something concerning, 1.
the time, 2. the reason, and 3. the manner of their deli-
very; 4. how far the laws given by Moses are abrogated,.
5. some rules for rightly understanding the Ten Com-
mandments; and 6. a few words respecting their order
I. The TIME. According to the best chronology it
Was about 2,460 years after the creation, 220 after Israel's
descent into Egypt, and the third month after their de-
parture out of Egypt, Exod. 19 : 1; before the birth of
Christ almost 1,500 years, and therefore above 3,000 be-
fore our days. God now first selected to himself a national
church; and therefore it seemed expedient to his wisdom
to prescribe them laws and rules, how to order both their
demeanor and his worship. Before this the law of nature
was the rule; but because it was blotted and razed by
the first transgression, it was supplied in many particulars
by traditions delivered down from one to another. And
those of the patriarchs who, according to the precepts
of this law, endeavored to please God, were accepted
of him, and frequently obtained especial revelations, either
by dreams or visions, or heavenly voices, concerning those
things wherein they were more particularly to obey his
1*
10 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
will. Then, too, God made no distinction of people or
nations; but, as it is since the wall of partition is broken
down, and the Jewish economy abrogated by the death of
Christ, so was it before, that, in every nation, he that
feared God and wrought righteousness was accepted of
him. Acts, 10:35.
II. The REASON. This was because the world was now
so totally degenerated into vile superstitions and idola-
tries, that the knowledge and fear of the true God was
scarcely to be found but only in the family and posterity
of Abraham; and even among them we have reason to
suspect a great decay and corruption, especially in their
long abode among the idolatrous Egyptians; yea, the
Scripture expressly charges them with it, Josh. 24 : 14;
Ezek. 20 : 7, 8; and probably they took the pattern of
their golden calf from the Egyptian Apis. God, there-
fore, justly rejects all the rest of the world; but, being
mindful of his promise to their father, the father of the
faithful, be appropriates this people to himself as his pe-
culiar inheritance. And because it was manifest by ex-
perience that neither the law of nature nor oral tradition
was sufficient to preserve alive the knowledge and wor-
ship of the true God, but the whole earth was become
wicked and idolatrous; therefore that this people whom
God had now taken to himself might have all possible ad-
vantages to continue in his fear and service, and that they
might not degenerate as the rest of the world had done,
he himself proclaims to them that law by which be would
govern them, writes it on tables of stone, commits these
into the hands of Moses, whom he had constituted his
lieutenant, and commands them to be laid up in the ark
THE INTRODUCTION. 11
as a perpetual monument of his authority and their duty.
How wretchedly depraved are our natures, when even
that which is the very light and law of them is 80 oblite-
rated and defaced that God would rather entrust its pre-
servation to stones than to us, and thought it more secure
when engraven on senseless tables, than when written on
our hearts!
III. The MANNER in which this law was delivered is de-
scribed to have been very terrible and astonishing. God de-
signed it so, on purpose to possess the people with the
greater reverence of it, and to awaken in their souls a due
respect to those old despised dictates of their nature, wheu
they should see the same laws revived and invigorated with
so much circumstance and terror; for, indeed, the Deca-
logue is not so much the enacting of any new law, as a revi-
ving of the old by a more solemn proclamation. And mark
the circumstances of majesty and solemnity in the action:
1. The people were commanded to prepare themselves
two days together, by a typical cleansing of themselves
from all external and bodily pollutions before they were to
stand in the presence of God. So we find it enjoined:
they were to be sanctified, and to wash their clothes, and
be ready against the third day, when the Lord would come
down in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai.